STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 17, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Simplicity and service will be the two leading concepts for TeliaSonera in the future. During the next seven years TeliaSonera will transform into a genuine service company through simplifying all aspects of operations.
In Stockholm yesterday under the common theme "Simplicity makes everything possible," TeliaSonera's President and CEO Anders Igel launched the company's Vision for 2010 to 850 top managers from TeliaSonera's markets in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia, Turkey and Eurasia.
"Telecom development over the last 150 years has meant that we have made things far too complicated in the telecom industry," says Igel and points out simplicity as the main means to reach the vision of a genuine service company for 2010.
"We regard simplicity in all its aspects as the single most important element in order for customers to start using our new services more frequently. We believe this will be the key to create growth in the coming years," continues Igel.
The development of the TeliaSonera Vision 2010 has involved large parts of the company. 700 managers and employees have been deeply involved in the process and in addition 3,000 employees have been active over our intranet. "We believe that a broad and thorough preparation phase is the prerequisite for making this happen. We will immediately start to implement this in our daily work," says Igel.
Our benchmarking peers over the coming decade will not be traditional competing operators. "Telecom operators are far from what we believe genuine service is about, and in all the major markets we already have a good position in that comparison," continues Igel. "On the contrary we will stretch our ambitions and compare ourselves with the top players in the European service industry, such as airlines, hotels and restaurants."
One of the central parts of the vision is the non-technological perspective. "We believe that people are sick and tired of all the different systems, abbreviations and adaptations necessary. Our customers do not care if we use fixed, mobile or datacom technologies. We want all our systems to work together seamlessly," claims Igel. "It will take some time before we arrive at our goals, but I am convinced that already by 2005 we will see substantial improvements compared to the situation today," says Igel.
"For me the Vision 2010 constitutes the start of something new and signifies a now fully integrated TeliaSonera. Efficiency measures and synergy realisation will of course continue, but now the joint operation also has a common direction in which to move," concludes Anders Igel.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements made in the press release relating to future status or circumstances, including future performance and other trend projections are forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. There can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements due to many factors, many of which are outside the control of TeliaSonera.
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